Archive for September 2009
Fighting the Good Fight?
The mindset of yesterday’s post, “Simply Live,” is one way to align our thinking, but it isn’t absolute. There is a component of fighting for what is right, standing up for truth, that deserves to be recognized. Individuals can, and should, hold fast to ideals aligned with a greater good. We all like to cheer on the hero in stories about a person who takes the high road and perseveres against tough odds to achieve a noble goal in the end. In such stories, it is usually easy to spot the nemesis or arch enemy who has less altruistic intentions. It’s not always so easy in real life.
I like to think that those who battle for selfish agendas are actually aware of their underlying motives, whether they try to disguise it or not. I find it a struggle to feel sorry for them. I have even more difficulty reconciling those who choose to fight out of their unidentified fears and become ferocious and even viciously aggressive in doing battle for what they feel is a righteous cause. I understand that they can actually believe they are seeking the greater good.
All I can do is agree to disagree. Sometimes, it leaves me feeling a tad bit shy about taking a stand for what I feel is right, knowing that my position can look as ‘off-base’ to some people as I think theirs does to me. It just takes trust that I am being completely honest with myself. Well, that and enough common sense to avoid using the display of weapons or acts of violence.
Why is it so much easier to spot the difference between the true hero and the selfish villains in stories at a theater?
Simply Live
Hey, it’s 09/09/09! Cool, huh?
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The universe pretty much exceeds our capacity to measure. Astronomers and scientists tell us that stars explode and implode, sending ghastly amounts of lethal energy in every direction, and black holes have so much gravitational pull that light can’t escape. Cataclysms that are occurring in space are so removed from our awareness that it’s as if they are merely science fiction for the purpose of entertainment. Meanwhile, on our planet, extremely devastating droughts threaten to starve 4 million people in Kenya and conflicts of war kill civilians in Afghanistan. In our neighborhoods, domestic disturbances bring death to families or to a responding officer.
It swirls around us every day. It’s enough to overwhelm our sensibilities. What can we do?
Sometimes it comes down to simply living our lives. Do what we do, and do it to the best of our ability. Be honest and true. Love others.
Maybe, in some small way, there is value in knowing about these things that happen around us, even though they exceed our capacity to fix, or even to understand. There is also value in being the best we can possibly be, regardless whatever else is happening in the world and the universe around us.
Simply live.
Expand Awareness
Our incredible brain machine is on my mind. Thinking about our thinking can get pretty tricky and sort of convoluted. It’s like getting in an argument with someone you live with and instead of arguing about the original point that triggered the debate, you find yourself fighting over the mechanics of the argument. Or like trying to make up a game in the neighborhood and spending the whole time arguing over what the rules will be and never getting around to actually playing the game.
There is an article from June of 2008 in The New Yorker that I was pointed to online. Fascinating. It is 8 pages long, so if you are interested in reading it, and I highly recommend it, then be prepared to sit down and read a chapter of a book. It is worth it. Among very many things covered in the article, there is a reference to how our minds are able to assemble an image from incomplete data. We do it unconsciously. I expect everyone, including myself, takes this for granted, but think about it! The author uses the example of viewing a dog through a picket fence where our eyes are only able to perceive separated slices of the animal, yet our mind is able to conjure a fully intact dog and visualize what the animal looks like. Our brain processes it for us without needing to think about it.
I am reminded of a scene from the documentary/drama “What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole” where they claim the first time a native tribe witnessed an ocean-crossing vessel on their horizon of the sea, they didn’t “see” it because they had no reference of what it could be, so it just didn’t compute. I found it hard to accept at the time, but now I can understand what was being portrayed. Having no concept of what that ship was, no reference of having stood on one or walked around one to know how big it is, that image on the horizon must have made no sense at all. The mind couldn’t process that unconscious step of forming the image.
At the same time, it occurs to me that our minds are pretty adept at conjuring up threats that don’t actually exist. Many of the fears and phobias our mind conjures up are figments of imagination. The monster under the bed or the boogie man in the darkness. The spinning view of vertigo for someone uncomfortable with heights. Or, as the article graphically presents, the itching that has no source.
Also from the article, consider how the multitude of sensors of our skin can ignore the collar on our neck all day long, but when a thread pokes out of the tag, it has us scratching and fussing to fix it. The skin works with the brain. But sometimes, as the article reveals, the brain takes initiative to control without bothering to get input from the skin.
When we are adept enough, or introspective enough, it is a spectacular refinement to unravel the unconscious acrobatics that occur in our minds and harness the power for personal gain: optimal health of mind, body, and spirit. You might even call it, achieving a bit of enlightenment.
Expand your awareness. Think about it!
On Holiday
The Monday holiday of Labor Day is upon us in the USA, and in honor of it, I will do no laboring. I will miss the morning soccer match since I am still out of town. I will be giving the hammock a workout, instead.
Still looks like summer up here by the flowers...
Twice this weekend, a situation occurred that involved someone being gone longer than expected, and the question of whether to be concerned, or not, arose. I tend to a default of ‘delays’ not being a reason to become concerned, even though I may be considering it a possibility. I have no idea how to determine when would be the appropriate time to become concerned. If, indeed, the delay was due to an accident or mishap that deserved assistance, I would look pretty bad for my lackadaisical attitude and lack of timely reaction. But maybe that’s just a chance I tend to take.
In both cases this weekend, there was no reason to be concerned. A little phone call to report a delay in schedule is a wonderful thing to do for those who may be waiting on you. In the mean time, until I finally get burned for my tendency not to over-react when someone is taking longer than expected, I will avoid worrying about these kinds of situations.
Don’t be concerned about us today. We will be home in time to make it to work again, by tomorrow.
Strange Days
During the past week at work, I had 2 interesting experiences. The first one served to reveal, first-hand, the struggle for employment that the current economic situation has forced on people. A woman walked in to our suite and asked if we had any openings. I informed her that we had none and she politely pleaded with me that she will do ANYTHING, offering cleaning as an example. She presented herself with a dignified desperation and admitted that she has resorted to going door to door seeking work because nothing else has proved successful for her. All I could offer was my sympathy and wishes of luck.
The second experience also involved a woman walking into our suite. She came in to report a lock-box on the ground in the parking lot in front of our site, with the keys in it. I stepped out with her and found a plastic case about the size of a large shoe box out in the driving lane. It looked very conspicuous there. The woman wondered if it might be ours. It wasn’t, and I had no ideas where it might have come from, so I decided, since the keys were in it, to open it up for a look, hoping it might offer a clue.
For a split second, the thought occurred to me that this black box might have been placed with nefarious intentions. I questioned myself for the action I was taking and maybe even flinched a bit, but while the woman was still present, I turned the key and lifted the lid. It was completely empty. Nothing but a mystery.
I decided to check with the local police in case someone had reported a loss. I figured it was possible the box was dropped by a thief. A patrol car stopped by and the officer told me they had no reports that appeared related. He took the box for safe keeping, ending my excitement for the day.
All that was left was to hop in the car with Cyndie and head to the lake. It was a beautiful day for a cruise in the convertible and we took our time on the drive, staying just 5 mph over the posted limits, allowing drivers feeling a much greater sense of urgency to ride our bumper until they could rush around our car to get to the one 20 feet ahead of us and ride their bumper. I love cruise control and not needing to be in an anxious haste to move in front of every car ahead of me. I make a better passive-aggressive driver than a blatant aggressor.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? George Carlin
Unrehearsed
It’s Friday of Labor Day weekend! What’s in it for you? Me, I’m hoping to get on the road before the peak rush-hour crunch and Cyndie and I will head up to our favorite getaway in northern Wisconsin. We’ll take her convertible so my car can rest for the weekend to compose itself after all it went through yesterday at the shop. Turned out that it was the drain plug, after all. They loosened it up a bit and then snugged it back down tight and with that, solved the big leak mystery. I’m a bit embarrassed but had a good laugh with the guys over it. I told them that I didn’t want to have to lay down on my dirty garage floor. That’s what I pay them to do. Except they don’t. Lay down on the floor, that is. They’ve got the fancy lift that puts the car at just the right height. If I had one of those, I would have taken care of the leak myself.
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If I could see around the corner
I would tell you what I see
but it wouldn’t really matter
cuz we’re different, you and me
and that memory that I harbor
I have shaped it as I’ve grown
so you wouldn’t even know it
as the one you’d call your own
we’ve gone our separate ways
and our lives are worlds apart
there’s a picture that I cherish
in my mind but from my heart
a collage I built of you
for which you never posed
created for myself
from the you I had supposed
would maybe somehow matter
as I tried to find my way
around my inner corners
and to this light of day
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Lung Lessons
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Asth•ma | noun | A respiratory condition marked by spasms in the bronchi of the lungs, causing difficulty in breathing. It usually results from an allergic reaction or other forms of hypersensitivity.
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Way back in December of 2008, I went to my clinic for a physical, to get a doctor’s authorization for my trek in the high altitudes of the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. I was told, at the time, that I displayed a partial airway obstruction and was then referred to a pulmonary specialist for further diagnosis. It was at the pulmonary clinic that I finally succumbed to the realization that I have an identifiable respiratory condition that falls under the label of asthma. I had been living my life up to that point in unconscious denial. The diagnosis really shocked me. I had never experienced an ‘attack’ of the type I identified as ‘real’ asthma, and never related the noun, asthma, as anything having to do with me. But, in retrospect, I have come to recognize plenty of the simple colds that settled in my lungs as related. Also, there were a few times bronchitis required treatment at the clinic, and plenty of times when I endured prolonged days of intense coughing and deep lung congestion. To me, it was just a cough. I never considered it a version of asthma.
The pulmonary specialist gave me a prescription for two different asthma medications: one to take daily for long-term control of airway inflammation, and then for short-term prevention, a bronchodilator for use prior to intense activity. I began using them right away in hopes of maximizing my chances of avoiding any limitations during the trek, scheduled to occur 4 months later. During that period, I never felt confident that I was able to discern a difference between being on the medications or not. There were periods when I assumed I was benefiting, but at the same time, since they were not dramatic differences, I wondered if I wasn’t just enjoying psychosomatic results. I thought I should do better, so I did do better!
In the end, during my Himalayan trek, I was still greatly limited by my lung condition, despite the treatment. Even though my lungs were compromised, hopefully it was less of a problem than it could have been had I not been using asthma medication. I continued to use the meds for over 3 months after I returned home, but since the results were not entirely clear to me, I eventually tired of the routine and slowly reduced the amount of the long-acting steroid, and then stopped altogether. I didn’t notice a difference.
Until now.
I have come to the conclusion that whatever my ailment is, it is a mild one. I’m a bit frustrated with the prospect of using a daily medication to treat a mild affliction, but given enough time, at least now I have come to recognize the subtle differences that treatment provides. Lately, what has emerged as the most noticeable difference is morning congestion. I have long been aware of the phenomenon that I experience in the mornings, and just assumed that’s the way I’m built. However, after having been off the asthma medications for a while, I have really been noticing the return of morning congestion. It’s the kind of condition which was entirely unnoticed in its absence during the period I was using the medication, but it sure has become obvious now that it has returned again since I stopped.
I’ve learned that there is a lot more to this asthma than just being out of breath. ‘All things lung related’ is a many nuanced topic, indeed.
Time Lag
Did I mention that something appears to be dripping underneath my car? For the record, I am not inclined to bother with looking under the hood of my vehicle (I wouldn’t know what I was looking at) except maybe to fill the windshield washing fluid or access the battery to give someone a jump. And it can be more than a year between such occasions. Decades ago, we used to look under the hood to check the oil level every other time we stopped at a filling station. I gave up on that after about the thousandth time of seeing no change in level. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of driving vehicles that don’t burn or leak oil. Until now, I guess that is.
This current situation snuck up on me when I dropped the car off for service the last time. They changed the oil and did the once-over checks they do (or say they do… how would I know?) whenever they change the oil. The final report was a general clean bill of health, except for one little thing. They found a leak up near the turbo. Something that may take some time to uncover, so it would require a separate appointment. That really gives a person a wonderful feeling, to be given back your car and told it is leaking, but they don’t know from where but go ahead and drive it anyway.
I took it back in right away first thing on the next Monday. Left it with them for the whole day so they could tear it all apart and come up with whatever had gone terribly wrong. They didn’t need the whole day. Turns out it was just a little clamp on a hose that could be replaced with no trouble at all. I was lucky.
Now that I was suddenly hyper-aware of leaks from my car, I finally noticed a bit of a stain that had formed on my garage floor where I park. Being so in control of my man-cave of a garage, all I needed to do was get some of the special floor-dry gravel used to clean up oil spills that every guy stocks in his garage. Yeah, right. I went in the house and got some kitty litter and sprinkled it on the stain. In a couple of days I noticed it was working great and absorbing residue that I figured was already dry. A few more days later, I began to notice there were still some new drops hitting the spot. My vast experience with car ownership has long taught me that once a fluid like oil has leaked under the hood, it can take days to weeks after the leak is stopped, for the stuff that already leaked to make its way down to the low spot to drip on the floor. So, I figured I would give it some time before I run to my service professionals with cries of, “It’s still leaking!”
This is a skill I have honed well. I can ‘give-things-time’ better than just about anything else I do. For some reason, even when I reach the point of deciding, “Uh-oh, better look into that…”, I can still continue to give it plenty of time. I pity the vehicle that waits on me to take action in a timely manner.
But hey, if I can get around to writing about it, I can make the call to my car guys. I now have an appointment for Thursday. We’ll see how my luck holds.
Purposeless Randomosity
Happy September!
Do not expect to find any answers in this post. But feel free to wallow in questions that hold little in the way of purpose…
Why aren’t there weeds in the woods?
Is it possible to yawn during an angry tantrum?
Would rock ‘n’ roll music have evolved if the only instruments that existed to this day were the same ones used in classical orchestral music?
Courtesy my friend David P.: Someday, will there be an implant that allows humans to capture an image that we see through our eyes so we can take pictures without having to dig out our camera?
How would your performance at your day job be affected by having a stadium of 80,000 people watching you and the job limited to 90 minutes to complete, while the spectators cheered and jeered?
How come we still call professional sports, “sport”, when it’s become so much like work for the millionaires participating in it?
How does Lindsey Buckingham, guitarist/singer with the band Fleetwood Mac, elicit all those notes and sounds out of his guitars with that finger picking style at the speeds he does?
Do scientists get embarrassed to release reports of studies they have done that come to conclusions that are absolutely common sense obvious to all the rest of us?
Is anyone surprised when damages from disasters reach higher dollar amounts than ever before?
What if people bought artist’s work while they are still alive instead of waiting until they die?
What would it be like if everyone always smiled a genuine smile, all the time – even when it didn’t feel genuine?
Is it possible to look deeply into someone’s eyes and not really see them?
What would it be like if you had to teach someone how to be you and describe how and why you do everything the way you do?
Being *this* John W. Hays is a lot like being different than just being the same as what it would be like if I were being unlike how it is when I become aware I am being more like what it’s like when I am being like what all the other John W. Hays named individuals would be like were they to suddenly take stock in what being *this* John W. Hays would be like in any other shoes than mine, if you know what I mean.
Relative Something 